So, this is a picture of what my father’s first car looked like – he had a Volvo 164 that was from the 1960s. The color was as shown in the picture and my mother informs me that her friend and my father used to argue about it – he used to say that it was silver and she used to say that it was funeral grey. 🙂

My father got the car from his father and had it when he lived in NY. My father tells me that people were interested in the car because it was foreign and they never could remember what kind of car it was as there were not many foreign cars. The car was decked out too – had a cassette player (which at the time, 8 tracks were most common), had air conditioning, leather seats. With a 6 cylinder engine, it was very good on gas too – also, apparently not so common at the time when everyone had big cars. Then came the gas crisis in the 70s and people started downsizing. Sound familiar?

My father would eventually sell this car to his cousin who took it back to North Carolina. Before talking to my father about it, you know what I knew about this car? That he used it as a pick-up line on my mother when they met. He told her, “I have a car.” She said – “So what. In NYC you don’t need a car.” Well, the pick-up line worked anyway. 🙂

Mommy’s First Car

My mother would get her first car after my parents moved us all to North Carolina. Hers was a blue Pontiac Lemans. Not sure what year, but perhaps it looked something like the above. She remembers that she paid less than $100 for it and when she was looking, her co-workers at Ciba-Geigy where she worked would joke with her about what to look for in the car – like a steering wheel, tires, etc.! The car had been in an accident so the front bumper was turned to the side. After keeping the car for a few weeks, they sold it and bought another big car that they called “Big Blue Marble.”

Comment (1)

I reallly enjoyed your article! Aren’t family car stories fun? I keep discovering more and more information about the cars in my family. I wonder if others are too. Once you take an interest it seems to blossom. Thanks for sharing!